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DESTIN, Fla. – Mike Tranghese’s message to the Southeastern Conference men’s basketball coaches was simple: If you don’t like the message, change the conversation.

Just days after getting a disappointing three bids in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey named Tranghese, the former Big East Conference commissioner, to a position the conference office is calling a “Special Advisor to the Commissioner for Men’s Basketball in the Southeastern Conference”. Tranghese’s hire is supposed to bring excitement and new ideas in the hope of reviving a league that was ranked as the worst Power 5 conference school in the sport.

“I wanted to broaden the conversation, that’s the phrase I’ve been using,” Sankey said Tuesday. “From a basketball standpoint, we’ve added another voice to the conversation and I don’t know how tangible that is going to be. I think the tangible thing is he takes my phone calls and we have deep conversations about men’s basketball.”

In the last three seasons, the SEC has had 11 total bids to the NCAA Tournament – one less than the non-FBS conference Atlantic 10, which has no national TV contract, has produced. The SEC is dead last among Power 5 conference schools in NCAA bids by a large margin. Auburn has not qualified for the NCAA Tournament since 2003 - that was four head coaches ago and is the longest current NCAA Tournament drought in the league. Alabama has not qualified since 2012 in the third year of the Anthony Grant era.

Big East commissioner Michael Tranghese speaks at the opening of the Big East Football media day on Tuesday, July 29, 2008, in Newport, R.I.(Photo: Joe Giblin, AP)

For the first time since his hiring in March, Tranghese was able to speak to all 14 men’s basketball coaches in the same room and said Tuesday he’s trying to get all those men to adapt to an all-for-one philosophy to get more national attention.

“I’m an advocate for the SEC and I don’t think that’s a problem for the coaches,” Tranghese said. “Sometimes what the office wants and the coach wants aren’t parallel but Greg has been absolutely open to any and all ideas.”

Tranghese said he told all 14 head men’s basketball coaches that the league’s success in football can help the men’s basketball program.

“I think they get frustrated because it’s such a great football league and they get overshadowed but that goes with the territory,” Tranghese said. “I just told them to use it recruiting. It’s an advantage to have these facilities and stadiums. I told them when I was in the Big East, we had trouble with attendance in games in November and December. We all have the same problems.”

Mike Slive made a nearly identical move with former NCAA senior vice president Greg Shaheen. In 2012, Sheehan was sold in the release announcing his hiring as an “NCAA Tournament guru” with the mandate of SEC schools being forced to send their "non-conference schedules to the league office for evaluation and possibly renovation” by Sheehan.

When asked about scheduling, Tranghese said Tuesday told SEC athletics directors that they are capable of figuring out their own schedules.

“If you just give me the schedule and look at it and I can tell you if it is the right schedule or not,” Tranghese said. “(Arkansas athletics director) Jeff Long and I met and I said to him ‘Jeff, if you win some of these games, you’re going to get in the NCAA Tournament’. You don’t have to play Duke every week but you do have to play people.”

Tranghese, who is a former member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, also has a problem with the rigid selection committee’s criteria and how it could affect the lack of selections for SEC schools.

“I listen to committee chair Joe Castiglione talk about Top 50 wins and it’s ridiculous,” Tranghese said. “I remember being in that room and somebody saying ‘well this team only has three Top 50 wins’ and I said ‘Are you nuts?! They beat the No. 52, 57 and 59 teams in the RPI. Those are good wins. They have every bit of information for them and if you beat good teams, you’ll get in.”